This invention relates generally to the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions and, in particular, to the removal of heavy metals from aqueous solutions by the method of coprecipitation. As used herein, the term "heavy metals" refers to non-ferrous metals and metaloids (e.g. arsenic) which have an atomic number greater than that of calcium.
There is increasing concern over the hazards posed by the rising levels of heavy metals within the world's water supplies. Most heavy metals are toxic to some degree to all life-forms. Aqueous concentrations of as little as 0.05 ppm can have a deleterious effect on aquatic flora and fauna. In humans, toxic heavy metal poisoning can lead to severe nervous system disorders and can cause death. Even trace amounts of heavy metals within an organism's environment are potentially dangerous, because heavy metals do not decompose over time (as do most organic pollutants) and often accumulate within the organism throughout its lifetime. This accumulation effect is accentuated in succeeding species along each food chain.
As a consequence of the increasing concern over aqueous heavy metal concentration levels, industry is being required to virtually eliminate heavy metals from its aqueous wastes. For many industries, however, this requirement is very difficult to fulfill. The metal finishing industries, for example, employ a variety of processes which generate large volumes of aqueous waste material. Many of these wastes contain high concentrations of heavy metals (often as high as 10 percent), including zinc, nickel, copper, chromium, lead, cadmium, tin, gold and silver. The combined quantity of these wastes generated daily is very large (over one billion gallons in the United States), and the number of plants employing metal finishing processes is also large (nearly 8,000 in the United States). Numerous heavy metals removal methods have been proposed for the metal finishing industries, including dilution, evaporation, alkali-precipitation, absorption, dialysis, electrodialysis, reverse osmosis and ion exchange, but none has been found to be entirely satisfactory.
By far the most common heavy metal removal method is alkali-precipitation. In this method, a sufficient quantity of base is added to the aqueous waste solution to precipitate the desired quantity of heavy metals as insoluble metal hydroxides. However, as governmental heavy metal regulations have become stricter, the alkali-precipitation method has become exceedingly costly, more difficult to use and, in some instances, inappropriate.
Alkali-precipitation must be carried out at high pH (between about 9.0 and about 12.0) in order to reduce the soluble heavy metal concentrations to within acceptable limits. Additive chemical volumes can therefore be quite high. Large quantities of base are required to raise the waste solution pH to treatment conditions and to precipitate the requisite quantity of heavy metals. Large quantities of acid are often required to reduce the pH of the resulting treated effluent, prior to its recycle or disposal. Additive chemical unit costs are also quite high because a costly base such as caustic soda must be employed. The most preferable base, aqueous ammonia (because it is less expensive and easier to handle than caustic soda), is impractical in the alkali-precipitation method. At the high solution pH levels required by the alkali-precipitation method, aqueous ammonia forms soluble complexes with many heavy metal species (especially with copper, nickel and zinc) thereby preventing their precipitation.
Waste streams containing hexavalent chromium, a common contaminant in many metal finishing industry waste solutions, require costly pretreatment because the alkali-precipitation method is ineffective in precipitating hexavalent chromium. The pretreatment step entails reducing the hexavalent chromium to the trivalent state by reaction with a suitable reducing agent, such as sodium bisulfite, at pH levels below 3.0. After pretreatment, the trivalent chromium is precipitated from the solution as a hydroxide by raising the solution pH to above about 9.0.
Waste streams containing organic and nitrogenous complexing agents, also common contaminants in many metal finishing industry waste solutions, require a specialized and especially costly alkali-precipitation treatment. To counter the tendency of the complexing agents to solubilize heavy metals, large quantities of calcium hydroxide must be added to the waste solution. These large quantities of base necessarily raise the pH of the solution to very high levels, and make necessary the eventual use of large quantities of acid to neutralize the resulting effluent. The necessary use of calcium hydroxide also results in significantly increased operating costs because calcium hydroxide exists as a slurry at treatment conditions and is, therefore, very difficult to handle and control. Furthermore, having to use calcium hydroxide in such high concentrations results in large precipitate sludge disposal costs because abnormally large volumes of sludge are produced. This abnormal sludge production stems from (a) the fact that, in addition to the formation of heavy metal precipitates, calcium precipitates are formed as well, and (b) the fact that calcium precipitates tend to retain a large amount of water.
There is, therefore, a need for a superior method for removing heavy metals from aqueous streams, especially from aqueous waste streams produced in the metal finishing industries.
Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a superior method for removing heavy metals from aqueous waste streams.
It is a further object of this invention to provide a superior method for removing heavy metals from aqueous waste streams without having to adjust the pH of such streams to pH values above 8.0.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a less costly method for removing heavy metals from aqueous waste streams.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a superior method for precipitating heavy metals from aqueous waste streams requiring less additive base.
It is a still further object of this invention to provide a method for reconditioning a heavy metals-containing acid stream requiring less additive acid.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a superior method for removing chromium from an aqueous waste solution.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide a superior method for substantially reducing the concentration of heavy metals within the aqueous waste streams of the metal finishing industries.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become apparent to those skilled in the relevant art in view of the following description of the invention.